Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iMac G5 owners--are you happy?

S

sigamy

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 7, 2003
1,403
194
NJ USA
I've seen a lot of iMac G5's listed for sale here and at other sites. We've all read about the fan/noise issues and that the performance gains vs G4s are not all that amazing.

I'm wondering if overall many people buy the iMac G5 and are left underwhelmed and then look to sale it either to upgrade to a PM or to downgrade back to a G4-based machine.

Any thoughts?

I have a 1Ghz G4 iMac and I love it but I'm tempted to upgrade. I'd like to speed up iMovie and iDVD encoding. But I much prefer the look of my G4 iMac so I'm trying to hold off on the upgrade.
 
I Love Mine

I love mine. It is much faster than my previous 1.25 GHz iMac. Now here's an important tidbit: The G5 is set to automatic performance by default. When you really want it to go full blast, just enter "Highest" in System Preferences. True, the fans will kick on then, but it's worth it. I normally have it at automatic for most tasks. Max out the 2 GB ram and it really smokes. I say go for it. Plus: you get USB 2.0 ports and digital audio out. Plus, upgrading/fixing things is MUCH easier now. Just remove the back panel and everything's there.
 
I am in the same boat. I was going to buy an iMac but hearing about all the problems and seeing how the mini is just slightly slower, I am going for the mini and saving almost $900. Consider the mini. :D
 
Etrain said:
I am in the same boat. I was going to buy an iMac but hearing about all the problems and seeing how the mini is just slightly slower, I am going for the mini and saving almost $900. Consider the mini. :D
Click to expand...

Pardon me Mr. Etrain, but "slighly slower" does not even COMPARE the performance difference between an iMac G5 and a mini. Remember that the G5 is a 64 bit processor: the best is yet to come. The mini has a laptop drive, copared to STA on the iMac... why keep going? Oh yeah, the Imac also comes with a crisp and brilliant 17" display.
 
I have a 20" Imac, I am very happy with its preformance, the 20" display is crisp and bad ass. The only qualm would be that they only come with 256mb of ram..... but this was easily fixed w/ 2 one gb sticks :D

I say go for one, you wont regret it
 
17" 1.8GHz iMac G5, couldn't be happier. It's a beautiful piece of machinery, a joy to use and hasn't given me any probs whatsoever. I love it! :)
 
I have had my new iMac G5 1.8Ghz 17" and have no complaints...it is super fast, quiet. It does everything ang and more for me. i am even thinking of buying a second one...

Peace
DjVoTeZ
 
I am planning on getting the 20" with a 250GB HD and 1GB ram. To go along with that i am getting a 15" 1.67GHZ powerbook with a Gig of ram as well.
 
I'm saving up my money and I'm going to buy a 17" G5 iMac for my parents. They are using a Bondi Blue 333 MHz G3 iMac running OS 10.3.8 with 512 megs of RAM. They only use it for e-mail and surfing the web but they are going to want to start editing pictures in iPhoto and making movies with iMovie when their first grandchild arrives in October.
 
I've had my 17"1.8Ghz since October and it does most things fine (I wouldn't say I'm a 'power user') but I've three issues with it;
1) The fan noise is disappointing, louder than any Windows PC I've used (but they weren't on my desk)
2) It won't shut down or re-start without the power button being held down for a few seconds. It shuts down but then the fans kick in at full tilt and never turn off.
3) It is not as fast as I'd hoped. I came from a 700Mhz G3 iBook and was hoping for a real boost but in day-to-day tasks it's blown away by my office Compaq 2.8Mhz P4.

1 & 2 may have fixes I've not looked for and 3's not a huge issue but I'm seriously thinking about whether Apple would be first choice next time I'm looking to upgrade which is a real shame because I love their design but they seem to be always just short of great.
 
Fan noise

I know for a fact that the iMac G5 will not be as loud as my parents' G3 iMac. It has a huge fan and a loud hard drive. I can sit in the livingroom and hear the iMac hum way down at the end of the hall in the office. Besides, I don't buy computers based on how loud they are, I buy them on how much more productive I can be (and my parents). Also, I ALWAYS have headphones on and listening to iTunes when I'm working at the computer so I never hear the noise.
 
Get one

I'm really happy with mine, having been a Windows user since 2.0. Fast enough, with the 'highest' performance setting in reserve if I need it, good quality build, and of course OS X.

The only thing I've found irritating is that the fans are just a little too eager to rev up; just scrolling up and down a web page can cause them to get a little louder. But I'm being picky - I only notice it because they're so quiet to begin with!
 
although im extremely happy with mine, i do have to say the fan noise is annoying at times. its not that the fan is loud, it just makes a whiney hum...sometimes when it ramps up it gets really bad. under normal use, you get used to it eventually, but you still know its there. its really too bad the fan cant make a fan sound instead of the whine, as it would be much more tolerable.

i havent bothered to push the issue with apple because everything i have read details long processes for a fix without many good results. seems like they will send you midplane after midplane even if the first or second or third doesn't fix the problem.

other than the fan, i really enjoy the iMac. its fast, its beautiful to look at and its a pleasure to use.

they should really fix the fan thing, though, or at least stop marketing it as whisper quiet.
 
I'm chime in with my input, I have a 17" 1.8ghz

I'm very happy with it. With performance set to highest, and a gig of ram, it gives me plenty of performance. Under normal use, it is very quiet. Plus it looks good, and the tiny footprint is great. The magnetic isight mount is awesome (it's intentional, right?).

A couple downsides: When the optical drive spins up initially, it is a bit loud. I've used it to watch a few dvds, and the sound goes away after a few minutes, but its annoying. When the fans get going, they are quite loud. Doesn't happen often though. If you ever boot into single-user mode, be prepared. The fans will whir up after about a minute. Scared me the first time it happened.
 
Balin64 said:
Pardon me Mr. Etrain, but "slighly slower" does not even COMPARE the performance difference between an iMac G5 and a mini. Remember that the G5 is a 64 bit processor: the best is yet to come. The mini has a laptop drive, copared to STA on the iMac... why keep going? Oh yeah, the Imac also comes with a crisp and brilliant 17" display.
Click to expand...

The proof is in the tests: Mini vs. Others

I am glad you like yours but honestly I have heard more horror stories than with any other computer I have researched. The mini uses safe technology. I realize only a small number of the iMacs actually have problems, but I still think it is a problem plagued machine with flaws in engineering. I am playing it safe with the mini (which does preform slower than the iMac, but as seen in the link, not that much slower). BTW, my future mini will be equiped with a better screen than Apple can produce -- the 20" Dell 2005FWP :D

I am not trying to talk you out of owning one Sigamy. I am just telling my own story and choices. For me personally I think the mini makes more sense. :)
 
While I loved my iMac G4's much more than the iMac G5 I have now......I'd have to say that all things media are a LOT faster on this (iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, DVDSP, FCP, GarageBand, Photoshop, etc.). So if that's what you need then go for it. I have the 1.8GHz with 1.5GB RAM.
 
I was a bit nervous getting a G5 iMac because of reported fan problems, but I bought a 20" just after Christmas. Apart from a couple of kernel panics, which I tracked to my Canon scanner screwing the USB driver, it's been completely trouble free. No glitches, no fan noise, it just works great.

People tend to report issues rather than report no issues, so it's hard to get a good picture of the extent of problems. I'm certainly a happy user of mine.
 
Thank God for this thread. :) It has elicited responses from many of the thousands of happy iMac G5 owners out there, and it's great to see positive posts rather than always seeing the negative ones. Most people post when they have a problem, and rarely do people post just to say, "I love my computer." So we'll always see a 9:1 ratio of bad:good reviews. It's nice to see a thread with many great ones. :)

By the way, as long as you have AppleCare coverage, don't worry about problems. I had a Graphite iMac G3 that had to have its whole logic board replaced and I know many people have had issues with eMac displays (most notably the infamous "rafter shift"). I think that was the name of it... But, I've had AC anytime I've had an issue, and I've never paid a cent for repairs. Don't worry about something going wrong because Apple will fix it for no cost within a year, and for somewhere between $100 and $170 (depending on where you buy AC and which computer you buy it for) you can extend it to 3 years of coverage.
 
Love my new iMac it wil last for a couple or three years before I'll want to upgrade, fan noise is minimal even with Eye Tv, Gimp and browsers open, only scare I had was last week was when my ram from Crucial bombed out, I only wish I had used the hardware test cd first not the Applecare cd (Techtool Deluxe) which said hardware ok but files/folders damaged, cut a long story short re-installed/archive OS X but couldn't, wiped drive tried to re-install software couldn't, last resort the hardware test cd = duff ram, so my only gripe is the software incompatibility (no idea if this has been resolved), talk about fan noise it sounded like a Fighter with full afterburn on using Techtool (3 hours!), forget about Diskwarrior it will not start up from cd, so thats my only gripe about the G5 iMac

p.s. lost everything, back up your files! I didn't :eek:
 
Even a problem owner loves it.

Whelp - I have a "problem" iMac G5 17 inch.

But, my first week, the folks at Apple Tech support were great about working with me to get my fan off of all-hair-dryer-all-the-time mode.

Now the monitor keeps freaking out, but my AppleCare should kick in in a couple of days, and I have no doubt Apple will make it right.

Despite all these problems, I LOVE it. It's a beautiful piece of hardware. The pictures online don't do it justice (you don't see that the clear polymer covers the entire thing - which I'm a big fan of.)

And, once the monitor is working, I'm going to up to 1GB of RAM and be even more happy with it. ;)
 
jsalzer said:
It's a beautiful piece of hardware. The pictures online don't do it justice (you don't see that the clear polymer covers the entire thing - which I'm a big fan of.)
Click to expand...
What's this clear polymer you speak of? :) What does it cover and what does it do for the looks?
 
The Poly

SteveC said:
What's this clear polymer you speak of? :) What does it cover and what does it do for the looks?
Click to expand...

I believe it's "Polycarbonite" or "Acrylic" or something - I'm not actually sure of its official chemistry. ;)

Basically, the entire machine (minus the metal leg and the monitor) is protected by a sturdy clear plastic about 1/8 inch thick. It adds a nice sheen to the computer, it helps Apple to make it smooth and round, it makes it sturdier (if you want to knock it around), and, most importantly, it makes scratches and bumps non-problems, as the opague surface underneath isn't touched.

I get external hard drives and DVD-RW drives from EZQuest for the same reason (well, it's just one of the reasons, but an important one.)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back